


A Previously Agreed Upon Arrangement

by aionimica



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Cannonverse, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Jedi, Kinda, Knights of Ren - Freeform, SW universe compliant, The Jedi Still Exist in this verse don’t ask me how, i mean they’re not really enemies but they’re not really allies, lightsaber fights as a metaphor for sex, maybe? - Freeform, rating changed for chapter 2, sorta - Freeform, yep definitely smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/pseuds/aionimica
Summary: Grabbing a towel, Finn wiped the sweat from his face and stepped closer to her. The smile of victory faded as he lowered his voice and asked the question she feared. “Why do you care about Kylo Ren all of the sudden?”This caused Rey to look away and hate the blush that rose in her cheeks: she told herself it was hate. “Because I’m going to marry him.”





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OccasionallyCreative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionallyCreative/gifts).



> A birthday gift for OccasionallyCreative! <333 I hope you enjoy!
> 
>    
> many thanks to MelodeeKS99 for betaing this for me!  
>  
> 
> _don't ask me about the mechanics of how this AU works, I just wanted to write these two kissing_

Rey will never forget the day she walked out of the Council chambers after Luke gave her away. They all told her the same reasoning: it was a necessary cover to ensure the safety of the mark. It was to be a long term assignment, deep undercover to offer him protection from something they didn’t quite understand. Essentially futile; the kind of offer the Council should have scoffed at and declined without a second thought.  

But they didn’t. Not only was it a symbolic gesture, a measure of good faith that the Jedi Council did not harbor ill will against a rival order, but it was a binding one as well. Some saw it as the reuniting of families long fractured, the healed rivalries of the past.

Rey saw it for what it was: an easy solution for a problem with no simple answer. She just happened to be the available patch that could sort of fit and mend the break.

“It is your duty,” most of the masters said as she stood in the circle of Jedi who watched her from behind furrowed brows and pensive stares. “And an honor.”

Only Yoda managed to look her in the eyes when she demanded to know why now, why her, why this assignment.

“Always moving, the Force is. Always in motion, is the future. All we know now, is to give the assignment, we must.”

“But why him?”

 _Him_ , she said it like a curse, a swear on her tongue   The man who hunted them down, who stalked the halls while wearing a mask of his own making, flanked by Knights of his own order.

Even Luke did nothing: he glanced at her somberly before turning away, quietly giving his acceptance. He didn’t fight for her, he didn’t argue -- nothing. Rey blinked back tears as her master couldn’t meet her gaze.

She bowed curtly and walked away, desperately ignoring the stinging tears that came down her eyes.

~

“What do you know of him?”

Rey spun around as Finn’s blade drifted dangerously close to her side and parried it, taking a small pleasure as his brow furrowed in frustration. They had been sparring for hours and he had yet to break her defense. Even as their motions became sloppy, the fatigue seeping into their limbs, she still managed to stay just a step ahead.

“Who?” he asked as he realigned himself for her next blow.

“Kylo Ren,” Rey spat as she put all of the venom in her voice behind her assault. Finn staggered back as he parried and then disengaged as he reevaluated his approach. Rey followed him, watching as he shifted weight from foot to foot, seeking out her weaknesses, trying to remember which ankle she twisted a few weeks back.

There was a reason she always chose to spar with Finn. He knew her better than most -- he knew her weaknesses and strengths, but was competitive enough to keep her on her toes. They complemented each other and pushed each other to go further.

“I was never a Knight,” he finally said as they locked blades again. “I was just an adept, I didn’t see him much.”  
  
“But you were going to be a Knight, weren’t you?”

Finn said nothing. Rey swung again with her saberstaff. She poured herself into the Force, into that deep dark pool that welcomed her in and as soon as she was suspended, she let herself go: it poured into her body, into her mind, her limbs and her attack with a fervor that nearly surprised her. But there was a reason that she and Finn always sparred together: because where she was the channel for the Force, he was her conduit who turned it back onto the world.  

She yelped as he redirected her onslaught, carrying the momentum onward until he spun his blade and connected with her knee. The burn was minor, but it pulled her back and set a snarl to her lips.

Finn smirked as he yielded, panting as he shut off the blade. He leaned back to catch his breath and shook his head as Rey stood there, ready to go again. That look in her eye wanted payback, but she knew Finn well enough to know that he quit when he was ahead. He won this round and he’d keep it that way.

Grabbing a towel, he wiped the sweat from his face and stepped closer to her. The smile of victory faded as he lowered his voice and asked the question she feared. “Why do you care about Kylo Ren all of the sudden?”

This caused Rey to look away and hate the blush that rose in her cheeks: she told herself it was hate. “Because I’m going to marry him.”

~

Finn told her nothing about Kylo Ren that she didn’t already know.

That the Knights of Ren were a budding order stemming from old Sith mythologies and backed by the new Association of the First Order’s leader Snoke.

That no one had ever seen his face -- the stories were that he was scarred on his face and he was unable to breath or live without his mask.

That he was prone to tantrums and outbursts.

That he was powerful and feared and doubtlessly loyal.

That he was the last person in the galaxy who could possibly need protection and the last person in the galaxy she would want to marry.

But it wasn’t like the Council listened to any of those points.

Rey was packing what little belongings she had when Luke knocked on her door one night not long before the ceremony. It would be small, but it would be official enough to cement their cover -- that a union between a Jedi and a Knight of Ren to solidify the tensions between the factions and greater unease between the Republic and the First Order.

Not that it would change anything.

She didn’t say anything when she let him in. Luke didn’t press her. He simply stood against the wall and watched her as she moved around.

“Why are you here?” she asked him at last, when she had packed as much as she could. “Haven’t you done enough? Or not enough really.”

Luke sat on the couch. “I came because I owe you an explanation.”

He gestured next to him on the seat. Rey crossed her arms defiantly. Luke merely met her gaze. In his eyes she saw all those moments they spent together: the times he corrected her stances, and readjusted her posture; those dark lonely nights where she cried herself to sleep, when the loneliness she never escaped seem to come crashing down -- he was there, a light in the dark warming her, lighting her way home. And when she looked at him now, she saw him as he was: an old man who was losing all he had left.

She sat next to him, resigned. “What?”

“I put you up for this assignment,” he said at last. Rey opened her mouth, but waited as Luke closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s my fault you’re to marry him. It’s my fault he needs a protector at all.”

Rey frowned. “I don’t… I don't understand.”

“Kylo Ren was -- is my nephew. My sister’s son. I knew him as Ben back then.” She knew that name. They all knew that name. A prodigy who walked through the halls of the Jedi Temple, whose name was still whispered by apprentices who talked about the one who could never be bested. Rey had only seen him in passing when she arrived before he disappeared.

“What happened to him?” She remembered him like a shadow, a gangly boy who hadn’t quite figured out the use of his limbs as he walked, but on the sparring ground, he was a sight to see. A telekinetic prodigy, she felt the echoes of him as she walked the halls, but they were spoiled and soiled with secrecy and doubt and shame.

“I took him as my apprentice. He held such promise - such unbridled ambition and power. I thought it would be easier teaching family and… I was wrong. He didn’t hold to our teachings -- everything he did, everything I did seemed to be at odds. He wouldn’t listen to us and as he grew older he started diving into theories and speculation that went directly against our code. And when he wouldn’t listen, when he challenged me in front of the Council and called us out on our hypocrisy, he drew his blade and threatened to kill us all. I cast him out from our Order that day. I haven’t seen him since.”

“But why are you sending me? What do you hope to get from this?”

“We’ve heard rumors of the Association of the First Order planning an attack on the Republic. And the Knights taking a special interest in the Jedi. After the Clone Wars, we cannot deal with such a threat. All of our insight points to Kylo Ren as the shatterpoint and we need to keep him from falling even more completely. And…” Luke finally looked to her and it came with tears in his eyes. “Ben Solo was one of us. In my hubris, I forced him out, refusing to listen to him when his concerns were voiced. I let that anger build in him, I did nothing to stop it despite being his master, his uncle. Of all the people, I should have been able to redirect and help him. I failed him most completely and for the longest time I was content to leave him be. But now? Now if we have hope of saving him, saving the Republic and all of us, I will do whatever it takes to make it so.

“You were sent because of you, Rey. This is not a punishment. You have done nothing but give us the utmost faith in you and your capabilities. You are one of the most promising Jedi we’ve seen in years.” Since Ben Solo. The unspoken qualification hung between them. “Hence this assignment.”

“But why does he need protection? He has his own Knights, he has his own power--”

“Because the Force wills it,” Luke said quietly. He laughed to himself, shaking his head. “Leia constantly says there is still good in him. I…. I’m too blinded by my own past, my own actions to see for myself. But the Council hopes that we can avoid further entanglements by this arrangement. And a Jedi at his side will give us the insight we need to plan our next steps.”

Rey blinked and carefully planned her words. “So, I’m supposed to save Kylo Ren from falling to the dark side to save the galaxy. Alone. And my cover is marrying him.”

It sounded even more ridiculous out loud. The Council was sending her into a den of vornskrs without a weapon and the fate of millions would rest on her success.

“I’m sorry Rey.” Luke stood and made to leave, but not before taking her hand and squeezing it. “I’ll always be here if you need me. And this will always be your home. You will always be welcome here.”

Rey nodded and when Luke left, she lay down on her bed and closed her eyes.

That night she dreamed of black Knights and red blades and her heart skewered in fire a million miles from home.

~

It took two weeks to arrange the ceremony and Rey spent every hour she had researching for her mission and her new life.

By the end she knew everything about Kylo Ren. She could draw the lines of his mask in her sleep; she knew the names of all his closest Knights and their methods of combat; she knew the best form to use against his favored Niiman and his broadsword blade. She knew shew as much as she could and when she learned all she could of the Master of the Knights of Ren, she turned to the past. She turned to Ben Solo and in time she knew the boy who loved history and calligraphy and who spent hours in the temple library reading about Jedi of old.

She knew everything but his face -- the face she would have to lie against and pretend to love.

That changed the night she met him.  

It was her last night in the temple, her last night before her wedding, and Rey decided to make the most of it. Finn and Rose and the rest of her friends planned a party that she was most definitely late for, but she wanted the time to herself. And she wanted to visit her favorite place one last time.

The room of a thousand fountains shrouded itself in constant mist leaving the wide space to feel much smaller than she anticipated. She wandered down the dirt paths until she came her favored spot, hidden away in the maze, always damp with mist and the heavy smell of the honey flowers that seemed to be in constant bloom. Only this time, there was a large shadow on her bench.

And unfortunately for them, she wasn’t in the mood to play nice. “You’re in my seat.”

“My apologizes,” the shadow rumbled and then stood.

Rey froze at sudden recognition as her voice breathlessly hissed, “ _You_.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected from Kylo Ren. She knew without a doubt it was him. He was tall, tall enough to make her feel small, which was a novelty she wasn’t prepared for and he wore black, heavy folding layers of black fabric draped across his chest with a solid broadsword saber on his belt.

It was his face that took her by surprise. There was no mask. She was prepared for the mask, she had expected the mask, but to find him here, in her spot, in her place without his most recognized feature was nothing she could have prepared for.

The face she looked upon was softer than she imagined, characterized by full lips and brown doe eyes under a questioning brow. Long black hair fell in soft waves to just above his broad shoulders and had the look of a one who constantly ran his hands through it. But even the softness of him didn’t diminish his angles in the Force. Harsh, crackling bolts shot out from what was otherwise a dark cloud where he stood. Everything about him was imploding and exploding; potential and expanding energy clouded into the shape of a man. And it reached out to her, prodding and perplexed, eager to learn and shape and see.

“So you’re the one I’ve heard so much about,” he mused as she stood still, unsure of what to say. “I was wondering if you’d come here.”

So he’d done his research. At least they were on equal footing there.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rey retorted. “And isn’t it bad luck for you to see me?”

“It’s not tomorrow,” he said briskly. “Don’t tell me you’re superstitious, though it would fit a Jedi adept.”

“I’m a knight,” Rey said, a snarl on her lips. “I’ve passed my trials, I earned my right. And you’ll acknowledge it as such.”

“Very well, Jedi,” he said quietly and Rey immediately hated how the word came from his lips with a purr. “Though it’s late, I should be going.”

“No,” she said with more force than she anticipated. He cocked his head just so, his eyes narrowed in concentration, but he made no attempt to move. A million questions, a million things to say to him ran through her mind. Here he was, this stranger unmasked before her who came to her spot to size her up the night before their wedding. A stranger who got what he wanted and made to leave as soon as he answered his questions.

But Rey had questions of her own.

“What do you offer me?”

He blinked, confused. She knew what he would be getting, she knew what the Jedi Order and the Republic would be getting -- it was written over every aspect of their arrangement. All Rey had to show for it was marriage to a man who threatened her Order, who drew blades on her Masters and all she knew of him was what she could find in the bowels of the HoloNet and the temple archives.

“I’m giving you my life,” Rey said crisply. “I am pledging to protect you, my life for yours. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and so on and so forth. But I’m not a prize, some Jedi you can place on a pedestal and parade around.”

She waved her hand disdainfully and a casual wave of the Force made the water sway. Those dark brown eyes followed before settling back on her with a twinge of mirth. And when she reached out to him, to that dark cloud that hovered before her, she felt an echo of her same unsurety. This was not his idea either. Pulling on that thread, Rey dared to step closer. “Don’t you know what they’re doing to us?”

Kylo looked away, fire flashing in his eyes before returning to a smoldering ember. “The Supreme Leader is wise,” he said quietly. “If you knew what they were planning, you’d say the same.”  
  
“What can you give me?” Rey said again, pressing her fear into words that he could face. Everything about him screamed conflict and death and pain that threatened to turn on itself as quickly as it could turn on her. He fought with himself as much as he longed to fight with the world and he bore that on his shoulders, on his countenance as he looked her over, lingering on the line of her neck and the lightsaber at her hips.

“I offer you everything,” he said eventually, his lips working over themselves as he settled on each word. “I offer you my power, my name.”

“And is that so good?”

“What name do you have?” he asked sharply, as if a Jedi orphan could have anything to compare to him. Rey nearly shook her head. What a pair they would make.

“My own,” Rey said steadily, ignoring the rising ire in her chest. She focused on his eyes, soft brown eyes that tried so desperately to be hard; his lips that looked like velvet, that worked over and over as if they had a mind of their own. He was handsome, undeniably handsome, and it was that fact that rankled her more than the sharpness of his tongue. She was supposed to be marrying a monster and he dared to be pretty. “And it’s served me well enough so far.”

He didn’t seem to be expecting that and emboldened, Rey stepped closer.  A slight blush rose in his cheeks, contrasting sharply against his pale skin. He would have staggered back if not for the bench behind him and Rey smiled to herself to find him trapped.

“I know you,” she murmured as she leaned in. What did he know of her? He knew she loved the fountains, that she came to this bench. But that wasn’t hard to find. He was a man buried, dead twice, but Rey knew more than than he could hope to know of her. She knew his name, his true name and all that came with it.

Kylo Ren swallowed as she didn’t shield her thoughts and his cursory glance told him enough. Though he was clothed in heavy black cloth, Rey couldn’t help but see the vulnerability in his eyes, naked in her sight.  “And what are you going to do about it, Jedi?”

He said it as a warning, but it came out as a plea. He was standing so close that all Rey had to do was lean in and press her lips to his. He stilled at her touch, limbs stiff as she leaned into him, pressing her chest against his, her hands digging into the outside of his tunic. It was a one-sided kiss - his shock giving nothing in response.

But as she pulled away, his hand reached out and held in her in place and crushed her mouth to his. He held her there as she kissed him, responding to her proddings with uncertainty, shuddering under her touch as her tongue swept his lower lip; groaning as her teeth nipped and her tongue soothed. He saw her as lesser, he saw her as a necessity. He offered her his name and his power but Rey came for something else. She came to save his soul and if Kylo Ren had to fall, he’d fall to her.

They broke away, the roar in Rey’s ears fading to the soft, constant hum of the fountains. She looked up to Kylo Ren, the monster in the mask, who watched her with unexpected fear and reverence. He swallowed, his breathing coming fast and shallow. She’d undone him with a kiss. In the Force, he was still -- the bristling energy she’d felt before had focused to a point and Rey felt all the power of the galaxy on her response.

“I’m going to marry you,” she replied, her voice carrying light and soft and burdened with promise and threat. She licked her lips, tasting the last of him before her hands fell from his chest and turned away.

She left him in the garden, the rising mist from the room of a thousand fountains settling on his hair like a million tiny lights. She didn’t notice how he stared when she walked away, she didn’t notice how his breath fell and the hard lines of his lips softened.

But she felt the restrained gasp that left his chest and the relief that flooded him and the want that echoed her own and for the first time since she walked from the Council, Rey wondered if this might not be so bad.


	2. During.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all enjoy! <3
> 
> the rating went up this chapter, FYI
> 
> stay tuned for part 3 ;)

* * *

 

 

“I know who you are,” she said softly and sweetly in his ear. She shimmered in the dim light.

Her freckled skin was soft, illuminated by the lamps behind them.

Kylo swallowed and leaned back and took her in as she took settled and did the same. Her arms supported her on either side of him, taught and strong. She smelled of sweat and warmth and the heavy musk of sex that leaked from her perfume and her hands were tangled in the sheets between them as she propped herself above him.

And she leaned in, just as she did in the garden before, only this time there was nothing to hide from his eyes. The lines of her trailed down her neck to the curve of her breasts that shifted against him as she pressed in further, the line furthering down the muscled curve of her back, the soft, fullness of her rear. 

“I know your name,” she whispered against his lips, her teeth nibbling along his lip, followed by her soothing tongue. When she pulled away, reached out and palmed her breast, her nipples hardening under his touch. She pressed against him, letting him take it in his mouth, his tongue working against it, sucking softly and eliciting heady moans from her, her grinding quickening against his thighs.

“Say it,” he said quietly. It was all so hazy, so vague, but she was here and crisp and clear and he didn’t even have to think before his hand was in her hair, his other hand guiding her forward until she straddled him. He thumbed a circle on her hip, encouraging her as she bucked softly  _ If you know me, prove it _ .

She cocked her head and shifted. Her hair fell like rain down her back, gentle strands cascading down her face. He wanted to hear her say it, to hear her name pulled from her lips, screamed from the top of her lungs as she throbbed with pleasure.

_ Prove it _ .

“Ben,” she said, giving into his hand and at his beckoning, she ground her hips against him. 

He stilled.

“Ben,” she said again, her hand on his shoulders as she rocked her hips and his body ached and his mind screamed.

“That’s not my--”

“Ben.”

“My name is Kylo,” he said sharply, trying to pull himself away, but her skin enveloped him, a smothering blanket he couldn't remove.

“Kylo--”

“Ben.” She said dreamily, her eyes dark and lidless and pulling him down, down, her lips swallowing and taking him and leaving him breathless, lifeless and--

He tried one last time. “Kylo--” 

“ _ REN _ .”

He awoke in a cold sweat, swears falling from his lips as he fumbled with the lights. One of his Knights stood off to the side, eyes narrowed in concern. Nilsina crossed her arms and didn’t move as his breathing slowed. 

“What.” 

She looked at the chrono on the wall and back to him and ran a hand down her braid, her  polished helmet under the other arm. “It’s time.”

~

Kylo Ren would never forget the night he first saw her.

When his master had notified him of the proposal, there had been an outpouring of emotions, but the one he could remember was a distinct flavor of rage. It wasn’t the first time such a feeling had come over him. At times it was even encouraged, so it was not the first time that Kylo had bordered on rebellion. He’d rebelled against orders before; he’d spoken his mind on countless happenings as Snoke built the First Order into a viable congregation of systems. But this was the first that such a plan involved him so deliberately, so completely. 

For not the first time, he saw what he was in his master’s eyes and for the first time in a while, that part of Kylo Ren recoiled.

“This is a waste of our time, a waste of our resources,” he’d argued.  _ A waste of me _ , he wanted to spit, but Snoke was already circling, his sharp eyes narrowed and tuning in on his unrest. “I can achieve all of this without her and chaining her to my heel.”

_ All this _ was such a simple way to put a plan that he didn’t really understand -- or need to. He’d fallen from grace from the heights of the Jedi High Council and Snoke was the hand that caught him. He promised him power, he told him the truths that Kylo himself had seen, and all he asked was loyalty, something that Kylo was all too eager to give.

He’d been a lost man before Snoke found him and now he had power and purpose and a guiding hand. But now he looked at it and only saw a clenched fist.

“A Jedi in your house is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for,” Snoke roared, lightning unleashing from his hands, “and you would throw it all away for your hubris! You fool!”

The lightning settled in old scars and long healed wounds, as though the conduits remained the same. And perhaps they did. The blast knocked him off his feet and so it was from the flat of his back that his master spelled out the plan. And in the end, it wasn’t the worst. It was just shy of it.

The trip wasn’t long from his Knight’s base in the Mid Rim to Coruscant, but he spent most of it alone. He brought Linnea and Nilsina to stand with him, as custom dictated, but left the rest behind. They asked him nothing and left Kylo to his own devices with the exception of when they fell into orbit around Coruscant. Snoke’s shuttle would arrive only for the day of the ceremony but it was up to them to oversee the rest of the preparations.

The two women stood there, waiting for their debriefing and the answer was poison on his tongue as Kylo told them what would lie in wait. 

“Jedi.”

Linnea grinned hungrily. It was rare that he saw her without her helmet, but her hair was long and bleached by solar radiation. “It’s been a while since I’ve hunted Jedi.”

“We’re not going hunting,” he said crisply. “I’m getting married.”

His Knights stopped asking questions after that. The three of them walked in solemn silence around the temple before Kylo saw enough of ghosts and cloistered himself away.

All he could think of was how to get through the ceremony without fault and return to his base where his Jedi wife could be cloistered away to her own content. No doubt she would want nothing to do with him.

But then he’d seen her. 

He’d seen her in briefings, he’d seen her holo in the files he was given, but it didn’t prepare him for seeing her in the flesh. That night, all that he knew was taken from him and the name  _ Kylo Ren _ suddenly meant nothing.

Suddenly he was just a frightened man with the memory of a boy, older than his years. He saw her standing among the whispering fountains, her slender form gracing the same bench that he sought so long ago. Or maybe it wasn’t that long ago, he’d only just forgotten.

She stepped up to him --  _ Rey _ \-- she said, and she’d kissed him, as if he was all she could ever possibly want in the world. A beautiful, bold, Jedi liar.  _ I’m going to marry you _ , she’d said, as if she wasn’t afraid. 

She left him alone in the Room of A Thousand Fountains with redness in his cheeks and a fire and heat in his groin he hadn’t felt in far too long. When he took himself in hand that night, it was desperation that tried to keep her from his mind.

She wasn’t afraid. Kylo didn’t know what he was. 

~ 

When he saw her for the second time, he knew without question that she stepped from his dream. 

They walked to each other, the master of ceremonies standing at the center of the hall. It was a small crowd around them -- several masters from her side and his Knights and Snoke on the other, along with a few dignitaries from the Republic and First Order to cement the arrangement. Though this was under the pretense of marriage, everyone knew the true reason. Everyone here stared at the other with suspicious, with the exception of the two people at the center of the room. 

He looked at her with curiosity. She didn’t hate him. That was the oddest thing. Since he stepped onto this world and into this temple, he’d felt the hate emanating towards him. Ben Solo was long discarded, but not forgotten. Though he and his Knights walked with their sabers at their belts, the Jedi Masters watched him carefully and Kylo knew that even now there were nearly one hundred sabers pointed at his back.

All except for her. 

She came at him with a kiss instead of a kill. 

He hadn’t expected her to do that. Honestly, he wasn’t quite sure what he expected from her. The Jedi he remembered were downtrodden and lost in their own mythos, but she was one of a kind. There was a fiery spirit in her that managed to get through the trials without being contained by Jedi doctrine.

She was a servant of the Force first and the Jedi second and that dawning realization sent a chill down his bones.

Kylo looked at her now as they stood in one of the Jedi Temple’s ceremony chambers. She wore soft linen robes, layered with different shades of soft creams and greys. Her belt was white and her outer robe was embroidered with a simple brown design that he’d once seen written on various holocrons. Her hair was down, though three strands were looped into three small buns down the back of her head and stars were pinned in place. She watched him approach with eyes dusted with simple makeup, though he could only think it made her even more beautiful, her softness all on display.

They dressed him in heavy blacks and a soft velvet brocade cloak. At first glance, it was hard to distinguish from his regular getup, but Linnea had insisted on some form of propriety. She had chucked a comb at him earlier and threaned to brush his hair if he didn't. He ran a hand through it, cursing himself for being nervous. This was a scam, a farce -- what did it matter.

The Master of Ceremonies drew them together and pulled the Force between them, clasping them in a grasp so strong, that neither could move apart. 

“You two have come together in the presence of the Living Force to be joined in union. Do you deny this?”

She answered strongly and unwavering. “No.”

The Master turned to Kylo and he replied with a shaky voice, “No.”

“Very well.” The Master clapped his hands and Luke Skywalker stepped forward, a simple braided cord in his hands and the Master commanded Rey and Kylo to repeat after him.

They knew nothing of the words until now, but they would beat in his mind for eternity, scarred into memory by the might of the Force.    


But Kylo clasped her hand tight as his uncle tied their hands together. Rey looked into his eyes -- never once did she look away. He made himself do the same as he spoke to her, only to her in this crowd of unfamiliars.

“ _ We are one whether we are together or apart. This is what I can give to you: You cannot command me, for I am a free person. But I shall serve you in those ways you require, To desire you and be desired by you , to possess you, and be possessed by you. And the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand. we will share everything and we will raise our children as warriors. _ ”

It was only when she promised the same to him and the Force let them go, that the weight of it settled on him. 

~

The final part of their ceremony was a standard that Rey had only witnessed once or twice before. As this was not just a simple assignment, but one buried under the farce of a marriage, the two factions agreed upon an ancient bonding ceremony for them. 

Rey shouldered off her thick outer robe. Her husband had already shed his cloak and stood out alone, waiting for her. Tradition stated that the two were to duel and for the first time today, Rey found herself to be excited.

Luke handed her the training saber and offered a single piece of advice. “Don’t kill him.”

Rey frowned. “Then how does it end?”

It was the first time she saw her master’s eyes alight since this plan was put into motion. Luke put the saber in her hands and clasped her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Believe me, you’ll know.”

Rey nodded once, still confused, but knowing she’ll get nothing else. Steeling herself, she walked to the center of the sparring ring. Dust settled around her, the soft earth molding under her feet as she walked to the man already there. 

_ Her husband _ , she corrected. And she wished he wasn’t quite the sight.

Here, alone before her, he cast an impressive shadow. All of his shades of black melded into each other, but from this distance, Rey noticed the gold detailing on his tunic and the silver thread in his collar. It was finery intended for her, for them. And he dared to look the part. 

She snarled and shook her head. Now was not the time for sentiment. Now was the time for victory. She wouldn’t be bested by him, not here in front of her masters and his Knights and the ever narrow eyes of Snoke. She wouldn’t be weak. She wouldn’t be lesser.

Kylo’s blade crackled to life and Rey did all she could to keep her expression blank. 

His saber was red, malicious, spitting red fire where her blade was single and simple blue light, casting it all around her face and then she frowned. Her husband’s face contorted for a moment as he stared at her saber hilt and he heaved a shuddered breath. 

“That lightsaber,” he said so quietly that Rey almost didn’t hear him, “belongs to me.”

“Oh yeah?” she taunted, swinging it in a lazy circle. “Come and get it.”

He didn’t smile. He answered with an attack that shuddered her bones. 

Every angle he came at came with broad swings of power, accentuated by his calls in the Force. For all her training, Rey’s teeth rattled in her skull with each blow as she was backed around the ring, adjusting her stance and power to his blows. When she sparred with Finn, there was not this brutality. Though they never held back on each other, there was not such a desire to not be bested. 

Not that it mattered here. Here, Rey wouldn’t walk out of this without Kylo Ren on his knees.

It went like this for some time, as one of them stalked the other around the ring, waiting and watching, learning each other’s tells. The audience was one Rey could have done without. Kylo’s Knights watched opposite her masters, and up in the stands she could feel the brooding presence of one Leader Snoke, not that it mattered.

She wouldn’t be bested. 

And then he gave her the in she had been waiting for. He slouched his right shoulder as she spun around and cut across his right side. Finn whooped from the sidelines as Rey landed the hit -- a heavy slash across his saber that grazed the side of his face.

She grinned and spun and turned to face him, ready for his snarling and his rage. But he only looked at her with wonder and awe. Heat pooled in the base of her spine. And then it was as if the room stilled and there was nothing left but them. 

~

“I could show you so much.”

The words spilled from his lips before he could stop them. It was his dream and her and the kiss she left on his lips all at once. It was the sting of the training saber setting on his brow, burning along his cheekbones. 

He parried and she attacked, he parried, she attacked, on and on in endless circle. He fell into the Force as she returned the onslaught, their blades a symphony in blue and red. Each motion they made was anticipated and returned until they became less of a spar, and more of a dance. He noted how she left her right flank open as a feint, only to swing in with her left hand; how she invited him in with a twist of her hips before darting out of the way. 

Where she lacked brute strength, she called upon the Force to hasten her speed and emphasize her strikes. “I don’t need a teacher,” she said heavily, in between gasping breaths. 

“Then what do you need?”

He would give it to her, if she only asked. He’d sparred with all of his Knights numerous times, but never before had anyone challenged him quite like she did. None were able to keep up with him like she did. Kylo threw everything he had at her and she returned it ten-fold.

Her answer was simple and unsaid. She wanted everything he had laid out before her. She came with the Force and her future and everything she had. And she would take only the same in return. So he gave it. 

He opened himself to the same Force she pulled from -- that nagging light peering over the horizon that was her to catch some of his flesh in it’s radiance -- and though he remained in it’s shadows, he fell into it fully. His motions were not his own, he blocked blows he’d never seen and attacked with agility he didn’t know he had. And so did she. 

And then they stilled, fallen into the grasp of each other: her lightsaber mere centimeters from his throat and his blade just shy from the small of her back. Any move by one would kill the other and the death of one meant the death of both.

They willed each other into this trap, where her chest heaved against him, her body warm and tense and so completely her near him. Her lips were not so far from his again, parted and panting and her eyes were locked on his with wide-eyed understanding. A gasp escaped her lips and it finally dawned on him that her spare hand held herself up against him, her fingers buried and twisted in his tunic.

He swallowed as her hips pressed against him for balance and without thinking, he dropped a hand to her waist to steady her. She leaned into it, and oh, so did he. 

It was as if she could read his mind and he saw into hers. There were flickering visions he couldn’t quite make out -- fragments and hints of pasts and futures he wasn’t sure he wanted ot see. But all he could see in everyone of them was her: standing at his side, in his arms, crying his name -- but she was there among it all. Rey, his wife, whose eyes flickered as the same thing crossed her mind.

“What is this?” His voice barely rose above the blaze of their sabers.  _ Can she even hear me? _

_ I can hear you, _ she said without speaking, though it echoed in his skull.

Kylo’s head jerked up to the Jedi Masters -- to where Luke watched them with fear and concern and Yoda sat, his face impassive. But the Force breached them all, stretching it’s maw open and revealing a thread in Kylo’s mind that tangled across the stars. He followed it, pulling on it so until he found it’s source and looked down into the eyes of the woman in his grasp.

_ Oh _ , he said so softly, so gently that Rey leaned in to hear -- his wife against his chest, her blade at his throat and his at her back, their minds widened and echoing with the thoughts of the other--  _ this is something else _ . 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took forever to finish and i hope the endeavors were worth it!
> 
> thank you so much for reading and i hope you enjoy this final installment! It was my pleasure to write for you and bring these two some matrimonial bliss <3
> 
> as always, you can find me on tumblr @aionimica

**After.**

The dreams were the worst part of it all.

It wasn’t the performance like Rey thought. It wasn’t standing next to him, his equal in vows and word and showing off a picture-perfect union of Republic and First Order alignments.

It wasn’t the fact he was a fallen Jedi, nor his knights that seemed to follow them in shadows; it wasn’t a legacy he couldn’t shake or his master’s hand that clutches him with something more akin to claws.

Instead, it was the whispering lull of the Force that crooned in her ear as she fell asleep —  _ you know him, you know him, you want — _ and her traitorous mind as she slept.

Most nights, they were childish dreams. Fantasies. Moments of soft lingering desires fueled by the occasional glance he sent her way. It was them holding hands, a finger brushing her cheek. Quiet endearments made real only by the power of her mind.

And other nights -- the worst nights -- she dreamed of their wedding night. Or, rather, what it could have been. She dreamed of his hands unwrapping her tunic, the soft wool giving way to calloused hands that lingered on her skin. It was his lips against hers in a mimicry of the kiss she gave him in the room of the fountains, but deeper and wanting and taking — giving. And then he would be above her, his arms braced as if holding back the world and his teeth grazed across her skin, his mouth fondling her breast while he worked the other with his hand and then—

Rey swallowed as the brightness of her world fell away to the dark loneliness of her bed. He slept in his own room, a few yards away as he always did, but it didn’t change the fact that Rey woke up wanting. And as the days went by and the age of their marriage began to be counted in weeks and then months, it didn’t abate and Rey watched her husband from afar every now and then as their bond flared to life, and worried.

“What have I done?” 

~

Rey leaned back against cool leather of the lounge as the sublight engines came to life and the small leisure cruiser took to the skies. She peered out the viewport as the multi-tiered tower of the rounded dome of the Senate faded into the mangled heap of other monstrosities on the Coruscanti skyline.

Her hand went to the pendant around her neck, cradling it in her hand. The crystal hummed softly at her touch and shifted from a simple white to a gentle blue. 

Rey swallowed and closed her hand around it. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Not like this. After their wedding, they were flown to the space station that Kylo’s First Order was based around. It was a military stronghold and Rey silently cataloged every moment of it. No matter what the bond in her head showed, she was still a Jedi and this was still a potential enemy of the Republic and she walked in on her husband’s arm. 

That was nearly two standard weeks ago. After the formalities on the station, she and Ren had touched back on Coruscant for a brief summit where they could be paraded around in front of cameras and shown as the burgeoning hope for a uniting peace in the galaxy. The sour taste in Rey’s mouth told her otherwise, along with the images of the heavily armored machinery she saw orbiting stars far far away. 

There were no protocols for this. Nothing to direct her on what to do. When she meditated, the Force was increasingly unhelpful; once clears choices were hidden by fog and lost in a maze coaxed by his voice. Rey pressed her lips in a line. His voice, her husband's voice, that followed her to troubled sleep and that seemed as unsure about all of this as she was. 

Before they left Coruscant, her masters found her and encouraged her on her mission, but what exactly that was, Rey wasn’t sure anymore. When she looked at Luke, he could barely meet her gaze and she thought she heard him mumble to Yoda, “we sent her to the dark side for a pair of pretty eyes.”

Everything in her burned with the truth that this was not how it was supposed to go. None of this was planned. The duel wasn’t supposed to go that way. And she could tell it just by the guilt and shame in Luke’s eyes.

Even now, Rey could see it. After their duel, she left Kylo alone on the sands of the training ring. She left Luke and the rest of her masters in the stands and went to be alone with her thoughts, only to find a hum in the back of her mind that most definitely didn’t belong to her. When she focused on it, she found the curious cursory glance her  _ husband _ , and Rey slammed with connection shut. 

A marriage ceremony. A symbolic duel that bound them closer together. The Force had a dreadful sense of irony in this case. In her rooms, Rey stripped down to nothing. She carefully folded the soft ceremonial robes into her bags and pulled on the light grey linens they planned for their exit. 

When she walked out, he was there, waiting for her with a small package in his hand. For a moment, Rey almost didn't recognize him. Sure, he was still wearing his black ensemble tainted with dust and sand from the ring, but it was the wide-eyed openness in his face that 

“I know we weren’t supposed to do this,” he said quietly. “But… here.”

Frowning, Rey took it. It was a small pouch, light in her hand and she unwrapped it, tossing the parchment aside, leaving a single crystal wrapped with cord on one end. Delicately, she unfurled the pendant and put it on.  

She looked up to find Kylo watching her intently, any attempt to read the lines on her face. Instead, she just opened herself to whatever it was that was now between them and said, “It’s beautiful.”

“It was my grandfather’s,” he had said quickly, almost proudly. “Anakin’s.”

Rey almost laughed to herself now on this ship as she rolled it between her fingers. Anakin Skywalker’s kyber crystal was her betrothal necklace. She was on a ship with the Jedi’s greatest scion’s grandson who was, in fact, her husband. And they barely shared a word together since the ceremony. 

“You have an odd sense of humor,” she muttered to the Force.

“I have a what?”

Kylo walked around the hall back into the lounge. Rey looked up and didn’t even attempt to plaster a smile on her face. The cameras were gone. It was just them and  _ that _ , that was somehow more terrifying. A Jedi who was no longer a Jedi but fashioned his own Knights and served a man who sought to destroy the Republic. It was just her and him and a marriage that was only a farce in her mind.

It was just the two of them now. Just Rey and Kylo and an autopilot and a protocol droid for the next two standard weeks. Tradition demands a honeymoon and, like in all of this, the details were chosen without their input.

She could feel his cursory glance, his brush against her shields that she crafted so carefully after she realized what happened during the duel. For all she knew, he was in full agreement to this. And Rey wasn’t sure which would be worse. But there was trepidation on his mind. 

“Nothing,” she said. 

He glanced away. “Well, the autopilot would take about two days to reprogram and the protocol droid says it’ll be two days until our destination, so you might as well get comfortable.”

“Were you able to find out where we’re going?”

“It’s a surprise.” His voice was nearly a growl.

Of course, it was. “So…” Rey started as he sat at the other end of the lounge. “What now?”

He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Rey waved her hand at the ship, her necklace, the space between them, “we’re married. What happens now?”

A fierce redness took over his cheeks and his eyes widened considerably and Rey nearly smiled to herself by how endearing it was. “What you mean… They never? They never told you?”

“Not all Jedi are as celibate as they claim,” she said quickly, letting him mull over that thought. Rey wasn’t… inexperienced in sexual matters, but that was not because of any of the Temple’s doing. She came late to the Jedi Order, like so many did after Anakin Skywalker made the ranks of master and opened up training to more than just infants, and her  mind and her body were hers and hers alone and she did with them what she pleased, even though she felt the resigned shakes of master’s heads. There were many speeches about being careful of passions and for lures of the dark side -- Rey had heard them all, and while some stuck, she found she preferred enjoying herself more. 

She had the Force, and the Force wouldn’t lead her astray. 

“I mean,” Rey tried again, “what about us. What about this?”

The unasked thought lingered between them, bordering on malignant. The look he gave her was this shy of panic. Rey felt the same. It was the same she had felt ever since Luke told her of this mission and farce. It wavered at their ceremony and faded to blissful contentment during their duel. But since then, Rey had been at Kylo Ren’s side, waiting for 

He swallowed and looked up. “I don’t know what this is.” Rey wasn’t sure which wa worse: the fact that she was married to a Force prodigy who threatened everything she knew and loved or the fact that she was married to this prodigy and was as confused by this as she was. “I’m not sure. I don’t know what happens next,” he admitted. He opened his mouth and hesitated before forcing out, “So much of what I know, what I seek, what I do and who I am is dictated by others. I was told to marry you, I was told to take this trip. And I obeyed.”

There were fewer differences between them than Rey would have cared to have noticed. Which is why she was surprised when he looked up to her and saw an earnestness that took her by alarm as he asked. “What do you want?”

_ You _ , she almost said, but she wasn’t quite certain if it was true, or if it was just the single word that she guessed was the answer. It was always the answer in holos. But her life wasn’t turning out like one, so Rey simply looked out the window and said nothing. 

Kylo didn’t press the subject. Rey guessed he felt the same. 

~

His breath was hot on the back of her neck. Hands  — his hands — roamed along the planes of her stomach. HIs lips carried across her skin as he murmured something that was lost in the moan in her throat. Sheets tangled between them as he shifted her hips, his thumb running down along the curve of her ass.

The bed itself nearly took up nearly the entire cabin, fitted with crisp white linens embroidered with golden thread and felt its detail against her back. He leaned her back and held himself up on his arms while his chest leaned over her. Her hands ran down his chest to his abs where muscle flexed just beneath his skin. He gasped as she touched him, her hands grasping and touching and reaching and she moaned as he returned the gesture. Rey adjusted her hips and there he was and she was empty and needy and his hands were there, waiting for her. 

His hands reached, his fingers curled against her, just missing that spot that beat with such heat and —

Rey woke in the quiet gasp of bliss unobtained. Her eyes clenched shut as she pushed her legs together, as if able to pull herself back into the dream by sheer force of will. A slight moan escaped her as she turned, but the acknowledgment of that was worse than what she saw when she settled: her husband and his eyes, wide and soft, his mouth barely open as he took her in. 

The blood left her face. Reality and awareness flooded back into her and her mental shields came crashing down, but oh, too late. 

Kylo didn’t move, didn’t breathe, but his cheeks were a bright red as he watched her with suddenly soft eyes. Rey curled into herself, her hands on her face as she hid from her husband, hastily patching what mental shields she had left. 

“I am… so sorry,” she mumbled into her hands. 

He rolled over onto his side and reached out and took her hands and pulled them gently down from her face. 

There was a war between them and history that would be delved into at a different time — but at this moment there was just them and their broken walls fell with the slightest glance.

It was open.  And it was not what she was expecting.

“Did you?”

“Rey…”

He didn’t get to finish before she was at his side, on her toes and her hands in his hair, her lips on his as she felt nothing but desire. 

His hands crept up the underside of her nightgown, callouses rough against her skin but it was the sudden touch that pulled them both away. They were there in their dreams — each other imagining the touch of the other and it was intoxicating and addicting but the sudden remembrance that this wasn’t something they’d wake from pulled them apart though the high remained. 

He saw her dream. He saw her as she thought of him and his lips and hands and tongue exploring every inch of her body; he saw her dreams as she moaned beneath him, his hands firmly against her ass as she was filled with his length. 

“Do you….” she sat on her knees, her toes curled up beneath her. It was preposterous to even ask such a thing. She thought she was alone — a foolish girl with foolish thoughts. 

But she saw his mind and he didn’t try to hide it — he didn’t try to hide the moments every day since their wedding that he walked away from her with an erection nor the hidden, silent moments that he took himself in hand in the fresher, imagining it was her hands around his cock, or her hands around his shoulders, her warmth pressed against him as he thrust against her hips. 

“I thought…” he tried to say, but his mind filled in all the blanks. Thoughts of shame and lack of attraction. Looking on her with longing but only finding rejection in return. “But do you?”

“We shouldn’t… should we?” Rey fumbled with the sheets, ignoring the warring shame and arousal that coursed in her veins. But what if he might… “Or should we?”

Kylo leaned back and took her hands and pulled. Her to his chest. She fell onto him easily, her thin nightgown doing little to hide her excitement. 

“What are you, Rey?” He asked as he played with her hair, twisting a strand around his fingers.

“I am a Jedi.”

“And what would a Jedi want with me?”

A heated blush rose in her cheeks and Rey turned to look at him; at his just slightly crooked nose, his pale skin speckled with moles and a long twisting scar across his right eye and cheek. He wasn’t conventionally handsome — he wouldn’t have turned heads in the padawan halls — but Force, was he striking. And he was hers. Her answer leaked through the Force:  _ I don’t know _ .

He scoffed, a disdainful noise that came through his nose and Rey held onto him as he shifted. One of his hands fell at the small of her back. 

She held his hand tightly. He looked to her  “I know you,” she said softly, an echo of their meeting not too many nights ago.

Then they were alone in a room of a thousand fountains. Now there were alone on a ship with a bed beneath them. 

“And what are you going to do about it?” he asked, his voice just as shaken as before. She didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at him. His eyes were soft, doe-eyes that belonged to a warlord she married for political. Convenience. But he was a warlord whose mind was opened to her and he looked at her with fear and desire and he whispered, “Rey…”

“Kylo…” she replied, “kiss me.”

His eyes met hers, dark and soft and weighted with questions without answers. A hand reached up to her jaw and canted it forward, and then there were his lips. So soft and warm and full and pressed against hers, working so delicately and softly as if afraid to break her. Rey echoed him and teased his mouth open with her tongue before drinking him fully, tasting every part of him, pulling on his lip with her teeth and soothing it over as he whimpered against her. His hand reached out for her breast, thumbing her nipple through the thin fabric of her gown. It was her turn to whimper as she rubbed her thighs together and moaned against him as he continued, twisting and pulling before palming her breast easily and pulled her closer and then--

It was over and Rey looked up to him, her hands halfway under his tunic and his hands on her breasts and lust in their eyes as they evaluated each other. Enemies on paper, married on paper -- that's all this was on paper and yet, Rey wanted nothing more than to sign all the papers in the world to make this man next to her, hers in the most complete way possible. His eyes were wide and his skin was flushed and he looked at her with heat that made her want everything he could give her and more. 

“Are you sure?” he asked, almost breathless. There was a thread in the Force that pulsed between them, discordant with Rey’s own traitorous heart. “We don’t have to do this…”

He sounded almost hesitant but Rey was done with second-guessing. She’d trusted the Force this far and the Force brought them together and joined their minds and Rey wanted  _ this _ .

“I want to,” she said. Her hands lingered on his chest, darting over the fastenings of his tunic. “Why did you marry me?” 

“Because I was told. And what about you, Jedi?”

“I saw you in dreams,” she said as he carefully unwound her wraps. He started at her wrists and folded the cloth in his hands as he worked up her arm. “I want this. Do you?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

She pulled his tunic over his head; he raised his arms for her and the sight of him almost took her breath away. She knew he was strong. Their duel on their wedding day was enough to confirm that. But now… Rey stared at him with jaw slack and eyes roving as she reached out and touched him, ran a hand down his chest to the trail of hair that peed from above the waist of his pants.

“You’re…” she started, her words trailing but her mind supplementing with every synonym with beautiful in every language she’s ever known. Kylo glanced at her sharply, his eyes widening and softening as her sentiments touched his mind and the next thing she knew, he’d reached out and she found herself against him.

He was warm, so warm and strong as he pulled her gown away and she sat forward on the bed, her nipples hardening in the cooler air. Adjusting herself though there was now so little between them, she felt a strange mixture of intense vulnerability and comfort. This was her husband, melded together in battle and joined by the whims of the Force. He knew her, even if only for short days, he knew her mind -- she let him see -- and she let him see all of her: scars, and all. 

And Kylo wasn’t coy. Rey could feel his thoughts as clearly as if they were her own and they echoed as his eyes fixed on the kyber pendant that swung between her breasts.  _ That belongs to me _ .

“You gave it to me,” she said sharply.

“That…” he stammered, unexpectedly as she read his thoughts. “That isn’t what I meant.”

His hands reached out and pulled her close until she was straddling his lap.  “Tell me what you want,” he said

“You,” she said simply and it was the simplest way she could say the truth. The truth was that she didn’t know what she wanted. What Rey wanted was always unattainable

And the truth of it was, she was good at waiting. She was good at waiting and watching for where the Force took her and for whatever reason, it led her here, to this moment with Kylo as he laid her back on the bed and reached between her thighs and kissed her softly.

She kissed him back, her lips and tongue searching as he did the same. Her mouth trailed down his jaw as he concentrated and heat pooled between her thighs, building faster and faster and then her hands were on his thighs, and his pants were on the floor and she was pulling him towards her when he paused.

“Are you?” he asked as he looked down on her, his eyes wide suddenly as if remembering a great fear. He didn’t need to finish the question though.

“They gave me an implant,” she murmured as she worked to adjust to his position. The Jedi Order was right to predict this chain of events, apparently.

He said nothing to it and Rey leaned her head back, mouth parted as he put a hand on her hip and entered with a thrust and  _ kriff _ , she gasped and moaned against him. He paused for a moment, his hands shaking as he swore under his breath heavy endearments as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured and then it was his motions against her and her hips rising up to meet him and it was the two of them in perfect time. It was reaching through the Force to find his pleasure and going to it with her hand and him seeing her need and want and reaching out with deft fingers that curled where she begged for it most. 

She came at his hand, his fingers against her core as the Force opened up and surrounded them and lifted her until she felt the edges of stars and basked in their heat. It was her and him and at her cries, the walls of their minds shattered and it passed between them. He bucked a final time before gasping into his own oblivion.

There the Force paused and held them up: it came with a blinding light and visions of multiple possibilities, but one remaining constant. 

Two futures, two destinies, one together, one unbound. Alone they fell: Kylo’s sword through the chest of men as bodies built around him as planets burned and stars winked out in the sky; Rey lost on a planet of water, swimming helplessly against currents as the Jedi Order looked to her for guidance. Together they rose: stars dotting out across the galaxy as they ruled with iron hands, the Republic fallen and the First Order banner rising across worlds. It was death and decay and absolute power for absolute desire and--

And then it was them as they are now, standing uncertain but resolute. Darkness rising all around but between them it was light and though it cast shadows, it was enough to keep the rest of it at bay. Resolute and uncertain, but it didn’t matter because they were together, their hands entwined. 

She curled into him as she fell down from that rain of stars, her breath slowly coming back as her body rested in the aftershocks. When she could, she turned and saw him, Kylo, her husband on his side facing her, his hand tentatively cupping her face. 

“What did you--”

“I saw,” he said hoarsely, as he nuzzled into her neck and hair.

“What do we do?”

“Nothing now,” he said and Rey turned over in the bed --  _ their  _ bed and looked on her husband with fresh eyes.

“You’re mine,” she said, her fingers tracing the lines of his face and brushing away his hair. “I saw the future as clearly as I see you now. You won’t turn.”

His hand caught hers and held it in place as he kissed each finger and gently took it in his mouth. “Not if you stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

 


End file.
